Read the full article by Nancy Joseph on the UW College of Arts & Sciences website. Strat reading below…
Before the pandemic, students in UW professor Connie So’s Asian American History course had an idea. For the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike ceremony, which marked the completion of American’s first transcontinental railroad, they wanted to create a film about the integral role of Chinese workers in the building of the railroad, told through the experience of a Chinese immigrant family.
The film was planned as a class project, to be completed in six weeks. No one involved could have imagined the project would later lead students to write and illustrate an ambitious trilogy of graphic novels, also known as comic novellas. The books, including one based on the class project, explore the impact of historic events on Seattle’s Asian American community.
“We call the trilogy the Wong Family Saga,” says So, teaching professor in the UW Department of American Ethnic Studies (AES). “The stories follow the Wong family, loosely based on my family and other families I knew of growing up in Seattle.”
So has been impressed with her students’ determination to share stories that are not often told. “I’m just doing the editing,” she says. “They’ve really taken responsibility for this work.”
